Meet the 25th Annual Photo Awards Grand Prize Winner

PHOTOGRAPHY MAY HAVE brought Lauren and Timothy Baca together, but storm chasing is the Moriarty couple’s love language.

Lauren grew up in East Texas, where severe weather was always a part of her life. “But they were never the photogenic, beautiful storms you get on the plains,” she recalls. A portrait photographer who gravitated to landscapes to capture her love of nature and the outdoors, she took time during the pandemic to focus on what gave her the most joy. She began connecting with other photographers online and, in 2021, went on a storm-chasing trip with a friend who had previously led workshops with Timothy. “That’s how Tim caught wind of me,” she quips, fully aware of the pun.

Timothy, on the other hand, found his footing in photography through the allure of a stacked supercell churning over the high plains near his Santa Rosa home. Following the massive cloud formations led him to a gaggle of storm-chase tour operators, photographers, and other curious onlookers all taking in the sight. “It  was gorgeous to look at,” he recalls of that first encounter. “It just bit me hard.” 

The next weekend, Timothy chased storms in Oklahoma and Texas, where he witnessed his first tornado. “It’s been a 40,000-mile-per-year passion ever since,” he says. 

Separated by hundreds of miles, Timothy and Lauren started following each other on Instagram. “I kind of knew I was interested right away,” says Lauren, who works in public relations for a tech company. But it took Timothy, who works as a manager on the SunZia Wind project, a while to text back. “He thought I was just after him to go chasing,” she says, chuckling. 

In September 2021, Lauren met Timothy and a group of New Mexico photographers for an astrophotography outing in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area’s Valley of Dreams. “That’s when we officially started dating,” she says. Two years later, they got married under the Bisti’s Alien Throne formation in a ceremony officiated by their mutual storm-chasing friend Justin Snead. 

Like any good love story, the pursuit of a stunning shot can be exciting all on its own. Sometimes, the weather front moves slowly and there’s time to take it all in. Other times, it’s frenetic, with a tornado on the ground or a front moving at 60 miles per hour, requiring split-second decisions. “The energy of the chase is something that you will keep revisiting, even after you take the photograph,” Lauren explains. “Being able to freeze that moment is incredibly special.”

Take the June 2025 storm that resulted in Lauren’s grand-prize-winning Where Enchantment Dwells and Timothy’s first-place landscape image, Into the Light, in our 25th annual New Mexico Magazine Photography Awards. The duo had just wrapped one of their Extreme Photo Workshops in Texas. After three weeks on the road, they were exhausted. Timothy suggested staying put and catching a concert that night, but Lauren realized the weather forecast could mean something special was brewing in eastern New Mexico. So they hit the road.

The initial storms brought hail and some cool photo opportunities, but a tornado warning to the west was the ultimate prize. While the narrow roadways were glutted with chasers all heading toward the same area near Nara Visa, the couple split off on an unpaved road toward an abandoned home Timothy had pinned on Google Maps four years earlier. “As the storm is getting closer, it starts to get incredibly sculpted—just beautiful and wild,” Lauren recalls. “We knew we were in for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”